


take a match right to your heart

by smc_27



Series: til there's nothing left [2]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Again, F/M, Part 2, Summer Fic, allie works in her aunts' candy shop in a beachside town, harry in summer just hits different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: He didn’t want to come because he knew everything here would feel like Allie, and that it’d feel like shit that he hasn’t seen her in almost five years (he can almost count that to the day) and that he’d be forced to face a bunch of stuff he doesn’t want to.Like the fact that that one summer, six years ago (yeah, he can absolutely count that to the day, too), he fell head over heels in love with her in this stupid beach town and they’d been dumb enough, or blindly optimistic enough, to think the could’ve made it work.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Series: til there's nothing left [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793419
Comments: 15
Kudos: 79





	take a match right to your heart

**Author's Note:**

> based on an anonymous prompt on tumblr: 'well i come here more often than you know, and I'm sure you think i've outgrown you, but i couldn't'. It really spoke to this 'verse and I couldn't help myself.

The only reason he’s here is that his mom laid literally the biggest guilt trip he’s ever heard, and he figured a couple weeks really wouldn’t kill him. Which is annoying, because that’s exactly what she’d said, and Harry doesn’t like anyone being right but him.

He pulls up to the house, parks behind his mom’s new Porsche, which he knows she rarely ever actually drives and likely only brought to the beach house because she could zip around town with the top down with her new husband. And look, Harry’s not in love with the guy, but he doesn’t hate him and that’s not the reason he didn’t want to come. 

No, he didn’t want to come because he knew everything here would feel like Allie, and that it’d feel like shit that he hasn’t seen her in almost five years (he can almost count that to the day) and that he’d be forced to face a bunch of stuff he doesn’t want to. 

Like the fact that that one summer, six years ago (yeah, he can absolutely count that to the day, too), he fell head over heels in love with her in this stupid fucking beach town and they’d been dumb enough, or blindly optimistic enough, to think the could’ve made it work.

His sister runs up to him and hugs him in the foyer when he’s barely got his bag set down. His mom is next, and then Geoff shakes his hand like they always do. If Harry closes his eyes, he can almost see Allie, wet from being caught in the rain, running up the stairs to his left the first time they…

It’s only two weeks. It’s not gonna kill him. 

… … ...

Allie would literally rather be anywhere else. 

Not because it’s this town, this little beachside place that fills up in the summer, bursting with people and festivals and tourists. It’s not that. She’s come here every summer for six years. 

No, this year she’d rather be at home, ignoring the fact that her aunts truly need her this time, Because Libby’s treatment makes her too tired to work all the time and they need help in the shop. It’s a thing she does every summer, but this feels so different. Maybe because she comes home at night and Libby will be lying on the sofa, pale and tired, or Allie will hear her throwing up. Or, sometimes she’ll hear Janine crying alone after Libby and Allie go to bed. And the prognosis is good and she’s expected to fully recover, but… Look, Allie comes from a family of women. All the most important people in her life, other than her dad and Sam, are women. Breast cancer is fucking terrifying and was even before all this, just statistically speaking. 

She rearranges the front windows of the shop, since that’s always been her and Libby’s thing because Janine has an eye and brain for figuring out how to make sugar look literally beautiful, but not so much marketing and window displays. She stands outside, snaps a picture on her phone and she’s typing out a message as she pulls the door open and heads back into the shop. 

(And look, sometimes when she’s in this store, she remembers the first time she met Harry, when he’d been handsome and boyish and sweet, and...It is hard to be here sometimes. Because what they’d had that summer was _good_.) 

It’s his sister she sees first. Allie’s ringing through one of their regulars, a woman with dyed purple hair she likely thinks looks better than it does, and what Allie thinks is a home perm. Connie. Her husband passed two years ago but she still comes in for assorted nut clusters every Monday morning. Her ‘rations’ for the week, she says. Allie thinks there’s something sad about it, but she’s polite and has the box ready at the register, a bright purple sticky note with Connie’s name on the top to make her feel special. 

Katie walks in with three friends, and even though she’s a teenager now Allie recognizes her immediately. She’s absolutely beautiful, for one thing. All the same striking features that Harry has, but softer, less angular. Her brown hair is styled in waves and the beginning of a summer tan is just bronzing on her arms and face. She’s playing with a tube of raspberry Lip Smackers, which makes Allie smile. Like, who does that? Only people pretty and rich enough that no one will actually question it. 

“Oh my god. Allie!” She rushes over, not caring that her friends are there. (Again: pretty and rich and no one will care.) Allie emerges from behind the counter to give her a hug. She’d spent so much time around this kid that one summer. Allie’s almost emotional. “You look hot.”

Allie laughs, shakes her head. She’s wearing these ridiculous jeans that’re too loose and ripped, and a tee shirt that she doesn’t mind getting covered in chocolate or whatever. It’s from a restaurant her ex-boyfriend worked at in Providence. She likes the geometric design on the back. 

“You too,” Allie says, almost teasing, but Katie makes this cute little face like she’s striking a pose, and Allie’s heart squeezes in her chest. Harry does a version of the same fucking thing. Did. “Are you here all summer?”

Katie nods, rolling her eyes. “Mom wanted to come. She married this guy. He’s fine, I guess.” Allie’s a little surprised. She’s seen Karen a couple times, just in passing - never close enough to talk - over the past few summers. She’s never seen her with a guy. Allie, briefly, stupidly, wonders what Harry thinks of that. But then she notices the look on Katie’s face, the way she twists her lips and looks, suddenly, so much younger. “Um. Harry’s here for a bit.”

Allie’s heart squeezes, which is absurd. She forces a smile. “Tell him I say hi,” she says, and that is fucking stupid. She doesn’t want to interact with him. It’s too hard. And probably super awkward after all this time.

They’d made it almost a year before they fizzled out. Crashed and burned. No. No, it was something in between that. They just kind of agreed it wasn’t going to work. He told her he’d almost kissed someone else, but he’d been totally just missing her. She told him she wanted a boyfriend, not a friend she talked to on the phone sometimes. They’d both just been looking forward to the summer anyway, when they could come back to this stupid town and have a repeat of how things had been the summer before. But they never even made it to that point. 

She feels stupid for thinking about him as often as she does. Which isn’t even that often. It still just feels like too much even after all this time. It’s just impossible not to reminisce every summer. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. It was still the best summer of her life, and she doesn’t regret a second of it.

… … ...

The last thing he expects when he’s reading on the porch swing is for Katie to sit down next to him, throw a bag of lemon hard candies at him, and say, “Allie says hi.”

She’s such a fucking brat. Katie. Not Allie. He doesn’t know enough about Allie anymore to think anything of her. 

(He’s a great liar. He’s been thinking about her plenty.)

He fights the urge to ask her what the fuck she’s talking about, because he can put the pieces together without making himself sound like a desperate asshole. 

The little lemon candies make him nostalgic as fuck. He can very clearly remember Allie sitting on top of him in her bikini on his bedroom floor, pressing candies past his lips and laughing when he asked for more. Lemon was always his favourite. Either Katie knows that or Allie suggested it. 

He grabs his car keys and tells his mom he’s heading out for a drive and doesn’t know when he’ll be back. But he’s also a whole adult and it doesn’t matter. 

It’s 7pm, and he watches Allie step outside the store, lock the door behind her. He’s leaning against the front of his car a few parking spots down, and watching her. The way the sun reflects off her hair. The way her jeans sit so fucking low on her hips. The way she slips the keys onto her index finger. The look on her face when she turns and sees him. 

She looks like she wants to walk the opposite direction. He hopes he doesn’t visibly show how much that stings. 

“Didn’t wanna keep passing messages through my sister,” he says, and Allie rolls her eyes, looking a little annoyed. He figures there’s a way she could take that as him being shitty, but that’s not how he meant it. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she echoes, coming to a stop in front of him. Except she’s up on the sidewalk, and he’s down off the curb, and there’s like, six feet of space between them. Which is fine. He doesn’t know what it is about her, but since the first time he met her, he’s wanted to be closer to her. Physically. 

“You hungry?” he asks, knowing the answer already, knowing she probably wants to say no but won’t lie to him, because she hates lying. Hated. Maybe that’s changed. He needs to stop acting like he knows her. Five years is a long fucking time. 

“I…” She looks sad. He wonders if it’s him. Them. _This_. She takes a deep breath, meets his eyes. “I just have to make a call?”

He doesn’t know why that’s a question. His brows come together and he nods. 

Allie turns her back to him and walks further away, stands so he can’t hear her conversation or see her face, and then when she’s finished her call, she jerks her head towards the pier, and you’d think his heart wouldn’t race at the familiarity, but fuck him, he guesses.

… … ...

This is awkward. And she knew it would be, and she came anyway. Harry pays for dinner from this new taco stand. Well, not new. It’s been here two summers. But that’s how she learns Harry hasn’t been back in at least that long; it’s new to him. Allie knows the owner and ignores Harry’s eyes on her as she says hello and chats while their food is made. Honestly, she’s feeling like she’d rather talk to Martin than Harry. That feels unfair. 

“Look at you,” Harry says as they sit down at the picnic table nearby with their food and two beers, which is new and makes her feel grownup. The only drinking she ever did with him was definitely sneaky and underaged. “A townie.”

She laughs a little, sips her drink so she can buy time and formulate a response. “That’s me.” 

It’s vague on purpose. Harry doesn’t call her on it. 

She hates how badly she wants to tell him about Libby. She can’t stand it. Because she doesn’t want to actually give him the satisfaction of being the one she tells things to anymore. And that’s an unfair punishment, because neither of them really did anything wrong. They just didn’t work out. And it hurt in the way it hurts when you lose someone you care about. But it didn’t hurt because he deliberately did anything to be mean and push her away. And it hurt because she was in love with him the way she’d never been in love with anyone before. Losing that was painful, even if it was the right decision.

But she also cares about him enough to worry that mentioning cancer will make him feel awful. She figures he’s got to be a little more...what, removed from, okay with? His father died of cancer. As much as it’s driving her insane dealing with this alone, she thinks it’s a little unnecessary to drag him into things that could be hurtful for him, too. She can’t expect that from him; he doesn’t owe her that. 

“You look hot,” he says, and Allie can’t help the laugh she lets out over him saying literally the same words his sister said. And…god, that’s just so like him. He grins, boyish, like he knows it. 

And because they’ve always been honest with each other, she says, “So do you.” He actually looks downward like he’s being bashful or something, which shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

He shrugs, washes down a bite of food with some Corona. “Mom’s been asking for years. I don’t have an excuse right now to say no.” Allie laughs - that sounds like him; putting something off until he literally can’t. “No internship to hide behind this year.”

Allie tilts her head, stupidly feeling hurt by that. “What’re you hiding from?” she asks, staring at her plate, picking a nest of cilantro off her taco. 

Harry’s voice is quiet, and he sighs, just before saying, “Allie.”

Maybe that’s his answer. _Her_. It sucks. This place is hard for her to come to, too. Well, it was. God, she can still remember so fucking vividly certain places she went with him or days they had together. And two summers ago, when she struck up an absolutely stupid fling with this guy, Oscar, who was visiting for a couple weeks...All the thing she wanted to do with him were things she’d done with Harry, and it drove her absolutely crazy. She’d just ended up having casual sex with him for as long as he was in town and leaving it at that. No ‘dates’. She didn’t want to do this. Sit with someone else on the pier and eat dinner with her hair blowing in her face. It’s absolutely dumb that she can’t do something so simple without thinking of Harry protesting her stealing food off his plate but absolutely not meaning the words he was saying. 

As a test, she reaches over and picks up his chicken taco, takes a bite as he watches her with his mouth open in shock, and then puts it back down on his little paper plate. 

She can’t help herself from smiling across the table at him as she chews. 

“It’s good,” she says, her mouth full, and Harry laughs, loud and bright, in the fading sunlight. 

… … ...

His mom tells him about Libby two days later over dinner, when Geoff is getting the last of the chicken off the grill and Harry’s picking at a salad and Katie’s texting despite being asked to put her phone away for just as long as they’re seated. 

He feels the colour drain from his face. His mom just gives him this sad ass fucking look, and he doesn’t know if that’s about his dad or Allie or Libby or…or all of them, really. 

Showing up at Janine and Libby’s unannounced is probably not the smartest move, but he can’t help himself, okay? 

Janine answers the door, tilts her head at him and gives a sad little smile and he realizes, only then, that he probably looks like he’s barely holding it together. She hugs him, invites him in, and he sees Libby sitting on the couch, a blanket over her knees and a silk scarf around her head. Harry’s mouth goes dry and his throat feels like it’s closing. He’s having flashbacks, or something equally as horrible. He leans down to hug her, though, then sits next to her with his body angled towards her. He’s not even sure where Allie is. He’s not going to pretend he doesn’t care, but he’s partly here for Libby. Mostly. Entirely, if Allie isn’t around. 

Libby’s reassuring him that it’s not as bad as it looks, telling him about her prognosis and treatment and...it’s fucked up that he knows all the words and terms and how this works. But once you go through it once, you remember that shit forever. It doesn’t go away.

Allie comes down the stairs in a pair of little shorts and tank top, no bra, and her hair all wet and wavy. She stops when she sees him, then looks like she could burst into tears. 

Libby smiles at him, looking almost like herself, and says, “Go on,” like she knew the second Allie appeared, he’d want to go be alone with her. Like he’s still 18 or something. But also, she’s not wrong. So there’s that.

Allie turns and walks back up the stairs. Janine gives him a little smile as he walks past her to follow. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, pushing her bedroom door closed. He’s trying his best not to make it sound like an accusation. She shrugs one shoulder, then a tear falls from her eye, and Harry lets out a breath and moves closer. He thinks twice about hugging her, but he does it anyway. Because fuck it. She’s crying and sad and this explains a lot about her right now, and he wants to comfort her. 

“I didn’t want to...Your dad,” she says quietly against his chest, and Harry smoothes a hand over her back, lets his eyes close, and then leans his head down a little more against her. “I’m sorry. I should’ve said something.”

“It’s okay,” he breathes, and then she pulls away. His arms are wet from her hair, but he doesn’t mind. She’s biting her lip, which is confusing because it’s hot and cute and sad all at once. “Mom told me.”

Allie nods, wipes at her eyes and apologizes again, for some reason. “Thanks for coming. I know she’ll be happy to have seen you.” Harry furrows his brows. What does that mean? “She’s always liked you. The other night, she...Maybe she’s living vicariously, or something. She wanted all the details.”

Harry chuckles. Allie sits down on her bed, but he’s not gonna join her without an invitation. Shit, though. It doesn’t stop him from remembering the times he pressed her into the mattress. He needs to stop. 

“I…” He wants to say something a little dirty. He wants to hit on her. He doesn’t know if that’s just their dynamic and always has been, but he also thinks it’s inappropriate.

But then Allie’s sort of smiling at him, tilting her head like she can read him like a fucking book. 

“Just say it,” she says, and like, she knows and she’s asking anyway. Inviting it.

“Could give you something to talk about,” he says, lifting one shoulder. 

Allie laughs, rolls her eyes and says, “I knew it.” He grins at her, feeling...warm? He doesn’t know. He likes it. It’s not awkward, like the other night. It’s different. 

He doesn’t want to ruin it. 

“I should go.”

Allie bites her bottom lip, then meets his eyes. “We’re just watching a movie,” she says, and it isn’t yet an invitation. “If you want to stick around?”

He wants to say no. He wants to leave before this gets too heavy. Heavier than cancer and them and all the shit from the past flooding his senses being in this room with her. 

But he doesn’t _want_ to leave. You know?

So what comes out of his mouth is, “You gonna put a bra on?” and it’s lower than he meant it to be, and god, he’ll fucking hate himself if he’s messed it all up.

Allie just raises a brow, tilts her chin up at him, confident, and says, “If I say no, will it make you stay?” as if she really wants to keep him here. 

She laughs when he takes a steadying breath, then breezes past him out of the room like he’s predictable. 

… … …

Sunday, her day off, he asks her if she wants to hang out, says something about needing to work on his tan, and when Allie shows up in her bathing suit, shorts and tank top, he’s shirtless on the beach with his sunglasses on, and god, she’d say she feels 17 again, but she doesn’t at all, actually. She feels so much older. He looks so much older. And when he spots her and grins, asks if she’s good to just walk a bit, she nods and is super aware of the fact that he smells like sunscreen and was also lying when he said he needed a tan. She almost wants to ask if he was just fibbing to get her to the beach, but that feels rude. 

They talk more about school, and he asks her questions that make her laugh, like the wildest thing she ever did at a party, or if she ever cheated on a test. She asks him if he’s capable of not drawing attention to himself, when she notices the way women are staring. He looks a little cute when his cheeks go pink. He asks about her apartment in Providence, and tells her all the things he likes and dislikes about DC. 

He turns so he’s in front of her, and she looks up at him and knows exactly what’s coming, because as much as she’s trying not to think he’s the same as he was when they were younger, she can also read so many of the similarities.

He kisses her on the beach and she knows already that he’s not staying all summer, but she holds him too tightly anyway, not wanting to think about it. Them being apart again. The fact that they’re repeating the same mistakes they’ve already made once before. 

His forehead rests against hers, breath coming out against her face. 

“This is a bad idea,” he says quietly, and Allie lets out a small laugh, still holding onto his sides, his skin warm under her hands. 

She pauses, thinks about if she should say anything. Thinking if she should push it. Make this more than it needs to be. Like, is she really going to jump into this without caring that they have no reason to think it’ll work this time when it didn't before? And is it absolutely stupid of her to think one fucking kiss means anything more than he’s still attracted to her and just wanted to do that and nothing more. 

“Or a good one,” she counters. Harry looks...confused? Intrigued? Surprised? Something like this. She rubs her thumbs against his ribs and he blinks slowly down at her. “It’s not like we were bad together.”

His eyes do that thing she’s always liked. It’s a tell. That he’s thinking about them in bed. And that’s not what she meant, but god, she’s a grown woman and she doesn’t care about admitting she wants him naked, too. Because it’s true, and maybe it’s been true since the other night at her place in her bedroom when he’d said the thing she knew he wanted to. Actually, if she’s being honest, it’s been true since he hugged her that night. (She’s not going to think about if it’s been true since she walked out of the shop and saw him standing there by his car, waiting for her.)

“It didn’t feel good when we stopped talking,” he reminds her, and she nods. 

That’s valid. It felt awful for her, too. But now she’s a PhD student, not a senior in high school. And he’s getting a law degree, not starting his freshman year. She’s got money and a car and he’s got more money and multiple cars, and they could get to one another, and she is absolutely fucking crazy to think that far ahead. Past anything that isn’t just getting into bed with him. 

She asks, “When are you leaving?” and knows it’s less than a week from now. 

He brushes her hair out of her face and says, “I could stay,” without her having to ask. 

Allie slips her hand into his and leads him down the beach towards his house. When he’s above her on his bed, he breathes out this quiet thing about having missed her, and she parts her legs further and tries to tell herself it’s the physical way he’s pressed against her that feels this good, not his words. 

(Both. It’s both.)

… … ...

He has no reason to think it’ll work this time when it didn’t last time. Except he likes getting to know her again. He likes learning things that have changed, and he likes telling her how he has. Really, what he’s getting at, is that it feels good that they’re not holding each other to the shit they said and did and were when they were literal teenagers. She’s a little more serious now, which makes sense. She’s smart as hell and he’s always known that, but the way she talks about her program, and the way she asks him questions about law school...It all just feels different, and it feels good that they’re mature enough to go with it. 

Fourth of July, his mother hosts a party and invites half the fucking town. Harry can’t stand it. She’s showing off that she’s remarried, had her rings cleaned just for this so they glow in the globe lights she rented for the back yard for this reason. Harry doesn’t have to say anything at all about it, because Katie’s chirping enough for the both of them and even though he tells her to be careful, he doesn’t really mean it. She can get away with shit talking more than he can. He’s supposed to know better.

Allie shows up in a white summer dress that makes his head spin, drinks moscato and leans up into his ear, saying something familiar about this holiday being a sham and the only reason she came is to see his reaction to her in this dress. 

This is the other thing. Allie was never particularly shy with him, but her as a grown woman? She’s gorgeous and bold and owns her sexuality in a way that nearly does him in. And he is _so_ fucking into it.

“It’s a good dress,” he says, and Allie looks at him like she thinks that’s a cute answer. “You look good in it.”

She presses her lips together and he knows exactly what she’s thinking. She wants to say something about how she looks out of it. Or him getting her out of it. Or…

“We should go inside,” she says just for him, and it’s literally like, four in the afternoon and his house is full of caterers and an event planner and…

Her fingers slip between his and she sets her drink down on the way into the house. He follows, because of course he does.

… … ...

He goes back to DC for a week. Allie feels stupid for missing him like she does. But it’s not new, either. She’s familiar with it. And now, like before, she texts him cute things and then he Facetimes her his third day away and shows her around his apartment. Which is actually a condo. Because _obviously_ his mom bought him a place in DC. From what Allie can gather about the way he talks to her in private about his future, and the way his mom talks about it in front of literally everyone, she thinks he’s going to want a place in the heart of politics. Allie’s working towards her PhD in poli sci at Brown, and Harry won’t let her tell his mom what she’s studying, because, he says, he wants to save her from awkward politics talk. She’d asked him, jokingly, if he just doesn’t want his mom to think Allie’s good for him. He’d been lying - blatantly and without even remotely being serious about it - when he’d said no. 

When he comes back to town, he stops by the store to pick her up after work. God, she thinks it’s so obnoxious, the way he stands against his car with his hand in his pocket like that. Obnoxious because it looks so good and he fucking knows it, and that’s exactly why he does it.

“You look like a stereotype of a rich guy in a New England beach town,” she says instead of hello. She plucks at the chest of his navy and white gingham shirt. Harry presses a kiss to her forehead, smirking at her. “Good drive?”

He shrugs, then drops his arm around her shoulder. She wants to be alone with him. 

“Lonely,” he says, knowing just how cute that sounds. 

Allie takes his keys from his pocket, which makes him look at her darkly. She doesn’t trust herself to drive this fancy car (and isn’t sure if he would, either) so she places them in his palm and says, “Let’s go somewhere.”

He looks really hot like this. Turned on. Surprised. Enamoured.

… … ...

He’s at her place - at Janine and Libby’s place - one night when a crazy summer storm rolls in off the water faster than they can get the towels in off the clothesline. Allie laughs in the rain and tosses the wet towels into the basket, tells him he’s stupid and didn’t have to try to help, and now they’re both soaking wet. He reaches for her waist and pulls her against him, tips his head back in the rain and then laughs when she jumps at the loud crack of thunder. 

“You’re crazy,” she tells him, and he kisses her lips, slick with rainwater. She shoves him away and they head for the covered porch. She’s soaking, her hair sticking to her face. He’s got a memory tucked away that’s really similar to this one. She sees it on his face, apparently, says, “Stop looking at me like that.”

Harry unbuttons his shirt and takes it off. She calls inside for a dry towel and Libby brings one over, laughing at the state of them. She says she’s rounded up all the devices and she’s charging them just in case the power goes out. She says she’ll open a bottle of wine. She says Harry should stick around and wait out the storm. 

His khakis and shirt spin in the dryer and they go up to Allie’s room to change. There aren’t a lot of clothing options in this house for him, obviously, but he had swim trunks in his car, and Allie has a tee shirt she promises will be fine. It fits him and he asks her why she has it. She says, “To sleep in,” and gives him this hot as fuck look that makes him want to press her against the wall. 

He texts his mom that he may not be home til tomorrow, then gets wine drunk with Allie and Janine, and Libby won’t let them handle the matches or lighters when the power goes out. Allie looks pretty in the living room in the glow of the candle light. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he says, and she rolls her eyes and glances towards her aunts. He spares them a look too, but they’re just watching, smiling, sitting on the sofa together. Allie’s sprawled on a chair that matches the one he’s in, her legs over the arm of it and her hair dangling down towards the floor on the other side. “I’m serious.”

“You’re full of compliments tonight,” she says, and she’s probably referring to earlier, at dinner, when they’d come inside to drop off dinner plates and grab dessert and he’d pressed his chest against her back, pinning her between him and the counter, and told her she was making him crazy with those stupid tiny shorts on.

But also: “When am I shy about complimenting you?”

Because the answer is never, and they all know it. God, Janine told him to get out of her shop the other day when he’d stopped in and was evangelising about Allie’s beauty to Mr. Everett and making her blush behind the counter. Janine hadn’t meant it. He’d done the same thing when Katie walked in with her little friends. Allie had hissed at him to shut up and told Katie to make him stop. 

“It’s nice he does it in front of everyone,” Libby chimes in, and yeah, since Allie mentioned it, he’s definitely noticed Libby is kind of his biggest fan. He’s a fan of hers, too.

“He’s just trying to embarrass me,” Allie says, and locks eyes with him, sipping her wine. 

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not like everyone else can’t see it, too.”

Later, in her room, it’s pitch black and she uses her phone screen to give light so she can walk around to her side of the bed so she won’t hit her shin on the frame. Harry takes off his shirt and throws it in her direction, and his clothes are dry now, having spun in the dryer before the power went out. He’s planning on pulling on his boxers, but then Allie’s in front of him on her knees on the bed, hands sliding up his shoulders. 

“Should I compliment you more?” she asks, and even though he can barely even make out her face, he can tell she’s genuinely asking.

“No,” he answers, grinning, and sets his hands on her lower back. She lets out a little hum. “I know how you feel about me.”

Allie giggles, a thing she legitimately only does when she’s been drinking, and he finds way too fucking adorable for his own good. “How’s that?”

“I see the way you look at me,” he says, and it’s half teasing, but it’s also true. She’s not subtle and he doesn’t need her to be. Doesn’t necessarily want her to be.

The next day, when they’re eating brunch at this spot she likes, she sets her chin on her hand and stares at him across the table. He just waits, because he knows she’s up to something. 

“You’re just...really fucking hot.”

Harry laughs, but his cheeks heat up despite him really, really not wanting them to, and then Allie calls him adorable and steals some potatoes off his plate without asking.

… … …

Allie watches, amused, from the picnic table she nabbed for them on the boardwalk while he went to grab food. She’d claimed she wanted absolutely trashy junk food and Harry’d been game to take her out for it. 

Now he’s in line waiting for their order of loaded tater tots and mozzarella sticks and corn dogs to come up, has two beers sitting on a tray already, and there’s this girl who’s maybe 19, if Allie had to guess, who’s talking to him. Allie just sets her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, and smiles sweetly when he catches her eye, looking for help. She shakes her head and he purses his lips like she’s hanging him out to dry, or something. She finds all this _hilarious_.

Look, she’s not stupid, okay? She knows how _she_ feels when she looks at him, and she’d be absolutely crazy to think she’s the only one.

He comes to the table with their food and drinks, and Allie blinks at him a few times, asks, “Who’s your new friend?”

He looks like he wants to be annoyed, but instead, sits down and says, “Her name’s Madison. She’s training to be a yoga instructor. She asked me out Friday. Might say yes.”

Allie _feels_ her face fall. Which is stupid. Because he’s clearly joking, and she doesn’t doubt that, but god, the thought of him...Like, he’s a flirt, or whatever, and she doesn’t care usually. Because she’s the one he typically flirts with, but also because even if she’s not the one he’s flirting with, it’s usually harmless. Like, him paying a compliment to an older woman who smiles at him on the street feels different than this. 

Harry freezes at the look on her face. “Too far?” he asks, sort of cringing. 

Allie nods, confirms, “Too far,” and then notices Madison looking at them. She leans up, grabs him by the shirt and ignores the absolutely knowing expression on his face just before she kisses him. 

She moves her hand to the back of his head, and this picnic table is in the _way_ , and Harry laughs against her lips, says, “I told her I’m spoken for,” like Allie’s doing all this for nothing. 

And she loves the sound of that. Him being spoken for. Ugh.

She sits back down, stares at him from across the table. “I _hate_ that that made me so jealous.” Harry chuckles a bit, sips his beer and tilts his head. She doesn’t know what that’s about. “What?”

“It was kinda hot.” Allie rolls her eyes, reaches for a mozzarella stick. Then he gets a little serious. “Did you actually think I’d…?”

Aliie shakes her head, lets him take her hand over the table. He’s sort of stopping her from getting a good dip of marinara sauce on her mozza stick, but she’s trying to align her priorities, here. 

“No,” she says, and then grins and adds, “I think I’m just about all you can handle.”

Allie laughs at the look on his face and the way he starts saying, “That’s…” as if he’s going on the defensive. He stops himself, sighs, and brushes his thumb against her knuckles. “This is stupid. I won’t be goaded into this.”

“Into what, Harry?” she asks, saccharine. 

His voice drops lower, and he leans forward, and Allie likes the way they’re eye to eye. The way she knows he’s about to say something filthy. The way she has to just sit here and wait for it. 

“I think I’m pretty fucking good at handling you, Allie,” is what comes out of his mouth, and she tilts her chin up, not wanting him to know just how much _that_ phrase is affecting her. 

“Okay,” she breathes, and the smug look on his face lets her know she’s given herself away.

… … ...

She’s taken it upon herself, for some reason, to spend her summer trying to decide on the best park in town. Harry has, of course, been dragged along to most of them. And by that, he really means he’s gone willingly with her because they hang out a lot and it’s not torture to walk with her after she’s finished work and find a bench somewhere and talk. 

Anyway, this is the first one they’ve come back to twice. He sips his iced coffee and asks if that means it’s her favourite. She gets this cute, pensive look on her face, and says, “Undecided. Testing it out. I like the duck pond.”

Harry shoots her a look. The duck pond is a literal cesspool of shit and algae, but whatever. 

He also thinks she likes parks and greenspaces because they’re always empty, since everyone’s at the beach. The parks are sort of quiet, and he can’t even lie and say he doesn’t like that, too. Mostly because it’s nice to sit with her on park benches or picnic tables and watch the way her face gets all lit up when she talks about something she’s passionate about. 

Right now, she’s rattling off facts about city building and gentrification and public art, and he’s just staring at her, because like, jesus, he loves it when she does this. And she does it a lot. She’s insanely smart and she’s still opinionated like she was when they were younger, but she’s also...It’s different, because she’s even more well-spoken, in the way that someone who’s invested in academia is. And he also knows he can hang with these conversations, and likes that she does, too. He made a joke, a few weeks ago, about how they’re both fucking smart, and she’d raised her brow and asked, super seriously, if he thought she’d be with someone who wasn’t. He knows the answer. He’s glad he’s got a good brain. 

“What do you want, Allie?” he asks, feeling a little deep. Allie looks over at him, smiles a little like she’s impressed, or something. And okay, he’ll admit, when these conversations come up, it’s usually her starting them. 

“Honestly?” she asks, and he nods, because like...no, he doesn’t want her to lie. “I want members of my family to stop getting sick.”

He lets out his breath, watches her with sad eyes. She smiles a little, shrugs, and he kisses her temple. And like, Libby’s doing tons better than she was at the beginning of the summer, and her treatment’s up and she’s just getting her strength back now, and has a ton of followup appointments. 

“Okay, so what do you want that’s in your control?”

“Money,” she laughs, and Harry’s...Look, he knows her family’s firmly upper middle class, or whatever. But he’s a little uncomfortable about the money talk with her, because it’s just not ever been an issue for him. “I want people to take me seriously, because I know what I’m talking about, you know?”

“Yeah,” he replies, and then her hand moves to his thigh so that’s just mildly distracting. “I know you do.”

“And…” She gets all quiet, laughs softly and looks up at him like she’s not sure how he’s going to react to what she says. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask to want to be in a good relationship. Like what Libby and Janine have.”

Harry smiles, heart racing, and nods. “No, that’s...totally reasonable.” Allie’s thumb moves over his pants, and the way her skin looks at this time of night will never get old to him, okay? “I think I want the same.”

She says, “What a coincidence,” all gently, and then turns to kiss him, her hand on his jaw and her lips soft against his. 

She tells him to stop doing that thing with his eyes, and he’s telling the truth when he says he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

… … ...

She’s no stranger to his house, obviously, and she’s spent a lot of time here this summer. But she can’t deny that it feels different, now, with Geoff here. And it’s not all in bad or weird ways, it’s just different. Karen seems happier, lighter, and Geoff is a serious guy, but he lightens up a little in the evenings. Allie knows he was an actor - she and Harry had looked him up, though Harry hadn’t wanted to, and laughed as quietly as they could in his bedroom one night when they came across old commercials he’d been in on Youtube. It’s like, hilarious how bad they were. 

Geoff’s an agent now, having earned a law degree before and during his stint trying to make it as an actor. So he and Harry have things they can talk about that don’t feel forced. And Allie’s used to talking about political theory with Karen by this point. Katie, for the most part, seems bored and inconvenienced by all the conversations she’s not interested in. 

Harry goes to Bridgeport with Geoff one Saturday to pick up a bunch of wine Karen ordered for some event or another. Harry hadn’t wanted to go, but Allie convinced him, saying it’s a good chance for them to bond. He’d said that was exactly what he didn’t want to do - why he didn’t want to go. She’d tilted her head and asked if he was really being this much of a baby about it. He didn't appreciate that, but he also knew she was right.

Libby’s feeling well enough to take Allie’s regular shift in the shop, and Allie can’t possibly express her gratitude. Honestly, she's been working 6 days a week and has been happy to do it, but having a Saturday off feels like a proper treat and something she wants to take full advantage of. The fact that it’s the same day Harry is out of town for several hours makes her a little snarky about the timing. And that makes her feel a little pathetic, or whatever, about how much of her spare time she spends with him. How much of her time she _wants_ to spend with him.

Katie texts her, saying all her friends are doing family stuff today, and saying all she has energy for is lying in the sun. Allie’s plans were pretty much exactly the same - she’s already got her bikini on under these navy linen overalls she absolutely loves. So she texts back asking when and where to meet, and then tosses her towel, change of clothes, sunscreen, water bottle, and two books into her tote. 

She isn’t surprised Katie said to just come to theirs and they’ll lie on the beach. There’s always tons of room there because it’s almost exclusively used by the rich folks who live out this way. Allie parks her car behind Harry’s and laughs to herself at how put out he’d been that Geoff had said he’d drive and they could take the Land Rover. Honestly, the very definition of a champagne problem. 

(She’d also kissed him soft and slow and told him he could take her for a drive later if it would make him feel better.) 

She meets Katie on the back porch, and the girl has a towel over her arm, two cans of La Croix and a bag of pretzels in her hand. Allie sort of laughs at the difference in the amount and kinds of things she brought versus what Katie thinks are essentials. Then again, the house is literally right here and if they need anything else, they can just run in for it. 

They get settled on the sand and Allie’s applying a generous amount of sunscreen to her chest as Katie lets out a little laugh, already lying back with the sun kissing her skin. 

“What?”

“It’s like, weird that this is the first time we’ve hung out alone,” Katie says, and Allie stays quiet, sort of disagreeing, as she lies back on her towel. “Considering my brother’s fallen in love with you twice, or whatever.”

Allie laughs softly, turns her head to look at Katie as if she’s trying to figure out if it’s true. And...Look, she knows him. She thinks she does, anyway. And she’s not _surprised_ to hear this, or whatever. God, the way he looks at her sometimes when he thinks she’s not paying attention is enough to confirm it for her. It reminds her of being a teenager and too full of feelings she’d never felt before. She never thought she’d experience that again in her lifetime. She thought it was just that first love, summer time feeling. Like, surprise and flattery that this ridiculously attractive guy wanted _her_. And it’s not that this time. Well, part of her still loves that someone who looks like _Harry_ is interested in her. But that’s just ego. 

No, the thing she feels now, this heavy, important thing that sits right in the middle of her chest like a knot is...It just makes her realize that she was kidding herself with the other guys she’s been with. Not that she thinks they were mistakes, or the relationships weren’t real. But she wasn’t in _love_ , okay? Because that didn’t feel like this. It felt nice, and sweet, and in some cases big and meaningful. But it’s different with Harry. 

And if he’s fallen in love with her twice, she’s been right there with him, doing the same. 

“You’re right,” she says, and Katie laughs. “He has done that, hasn’t he?”

“Mhm.” Katie turns her head, tips up her sunglasses. “I mean, you’re hot and awesome, so I get it.”

Maybe it’s that Katie is a literal teenaged girl and Allie’s influenced by that, but she’s really trying to keep herself from pressing her for gossip on Harry and things he might’ve said to her. Like, there’s got to be a reason Katie thinks this thing she’s said. It’s not just her observing them together. Allie knows he and Katie have a standing Monday evening hang, where they usually go out for dinner and then some stupid activity Katie usually picks just to see if he’ll actually go along with it. Like mini golf or go carting or shopping. (Spoiler: he always does.) 

“Okay, but has he said anything?” she asks, feeling a little encouraged by just that thought to press on and fully commit to the gossip. Whatever. Katie started it.

Katie laughs, says, “He told me to mind my fucking business,” and Allie thinks that sounds like him, and feels a little weird about his 15 year old sister cursing this way, but then she remembers being 15 and doing the same thing. Katie’s not exactly a little kid. “Geoff was talking last week about like, how smart and brilliant you are. Harry was just like, agreeing and smiling at his plate like some kind of teenaged idiot.” 

Allie smiles to herself, closes her eyes and tries to focus on the feeling of the sun beating down on her skin, not the warmth she’s feeling from the inside out at the image Katie’s just painted for her. 

“Those are just facts, though,” Allie says, feeling cheeky. 

Katie lets out a little snort and then turns, leans up on her elbow. “Mom said something about him repeating summer flings and he got real defensive.” Allie leans up, too, because…It is sort of shitty of his mom to say something like that. She likes Karen, but she also thinks, sometimes, that the woman barely understands her son. It’s not Allie’s place to speculate, so she doesn’t say anything to him about it. When he wants to talk about it, he brings it to her. “He said it’s not a fling. That he has feelings.”

“He said that? In front of everyone?” 

Katie shrugs, lies back down. “He’s not actually the worst about talking about his feelings. I think because dad…” She stops. Allie can’t guess the rest of that sentence, but she’s not going to ask, either. “Anyway, he like, defended your honour, or whatever. So that has to mean something.”

They’re still outside, and Allie’s drinking her La Croix, which is warm and kind of gross as a result, when Harry comes home. He walks onto the beach, smiles down at her, blocking the sun. The look in his eyes is dark and wanting, and Allie wants to scream at him that his sister is _literally_ right here, but then he just peels his shirt off, drops it on Allie and heads off for the water. 

Allie leans up, propped up on her elbows, and pushes her sunglasses up as he dives into the surf. 

“Oh my god, gross,” Katie laughs, and then sits up and pulls her hair up into a knot on top of her head. “Don’t _stare_ , Allie. You’re better than that.”

Allie laughs, knowing that is absolutely not true. He’s attractive and she’s going to notice it. And just now when he’d looked down at her that way, all she could think about was him sitting at a table with his family, talking about her. And she’s not supposed to swoon at that. But that, and then the added bonus of him shirtless, hair messy, wading into the water in black board shorts that match her bikini? 

He comes out of the water, runs his hand through his hair and then walks back over. Katie gets up, stretches her arms over her head, and says something about going inside to shower before dinner. 

Harry takes Katie’s place, leans over and sets a wet hand just below Allie’s breasts, where her bikini top stops and her skin starts. 

“God, I thought she’d never leave,” he murmurs, and Allie realizes he’s looking down at her body, not her face. 

She feels a little daring, asks, “And what are you gonna do about it on a public beach, Harry?” He lets out a low hum, moves his hand down so his fingertips are resting over her bathing suit bottom, and she hisses his name. 

He chuckles, a low sound from somewhere deep in his chest that she’s not used to hearing in the daylight. “Don’t tempt me with risky shit, Allie,” he says, and then smirks when she takes a deep breath. “I’m good with challenges.”

Allie takes the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth, meets his eyes and says, “Let’s take that drive now.”

His brow goes up like he wasn’t expecting it. And that makes sense. Like, are they really going to go somewhere while it’s light out and have sex in his car? She doesn’t actually know. But she wants him badly enough right now to see if they can make that work. 

She’s laughing, 40 minutes later, when they’re in the back seat of his car which is actually absolutely too small for this. Harry moves off her, sits up, pulls her onto his lap and holds her there, tells her to stop being so fucking adorable. 

“Or what?” she asks. 

His answering breath says a lot more than he thinks it does.

… … ...

Katie corners him in the kitchen when he’s just trying to get an espresso and she’s drinking some ridiculous, sugar-filled concoction she got from the café in town when she went with their mom to pick up a package. It’s practically a milkshake and it’s 9:00am. And he loves his sister, but this thing she does where she looks at him like she’s smarter than he is sort of pisses him off. 

“What?” he finally asks. Sort of sharply. Not meaning to sound like an asshole, but doing it anyway. 

“Nothing.” She hops up onto the counter and swings her legs, and Harry rolls his eyes and lets the coffee maker grind his beans and crosses his arms, looking at her. “Allie.”

He tries to fake nonchalance, because even at just the sound of her name, he’s thinking about yesterday in his car and pushing her bikini bottoms aside, and it’s fucking inappropriate to think of that when he’s talking to his kid sister. 

“What about her?”

“I like her a lot,” Katie says, and Harry gives her half a smile and checks the progress of his espresso. For something to do, but also because the caffeine would be appreciated immediately. 

“Yeah, me too,” he says, sounding distracted, which is what he was going for. “That it?”

Katie shrugs, sips her drink, and Harry rolls his eyes, annoyed. He reaches for his cup and switches off the machine. “She was asking about you.” His brow furrows. Like, this isn’t some high school shit where they’ve got crushes on each other and need friends to intervene on things. “She wanted to know if you talk about her.”

Harry smirks. He gets it now. Katie’s just being a teenager and stirring the pot. Which is a thing she likes to do and is mostly harmless. Like, oh no, is Allie gonna know he likes her now? Stupid. 

That said, if she said something that made Allie act the way she did with him yesterday (and again last night; twice), he’s not gonna be gross about it, but he will be a little thankful. Like, internally.

“You playing wingwoman?” 

Katie laughs, and god, ya know, sometimes looking at her he sees their dad, and it still fucks him up. It’s getting worse the older she gets. He knows that’s how his mom feels looking at him. 

“I may have been in your corner.” Harry drinks his espresso, the bitterness coating his tongue just the way he likes. “I didn’t say anything that’d make your girlfriend break up with you.”

Harry almost freezes. He just watches her, and she seems to realize she’s given him something to talk about, or whatever, because she hops off the counter, slurps her obnoxious drink loudly, and wanders out of the kitchen. 

Is Allie his girlfriend? Probably? They haven’t had that conversation, but they’ve had other ones, and he doesn’t think it’d be a problem for either of them if that’s how they labeled it.

When he wanders into Allie’s room and she’s sort of half asleep on her bed with some boring looking book on some old dead white guy lying next to her, he just leans against the door frame, watching, and takes a deep breath. 

Fuck. 

He’s like, actually...He thinks he could tell her he’s in love with her and it wouldn’t be a lie. And he doesn’t know why the hell he’s thinking about it that way instead of just thinking of it accurately. Which is to say, he is in love with her. He was sure of it last time and he’s sure of it now. 

Allie blinks her eyes open, and he shoves himself off the door frame and walks in to sit next to her. 

She says, “Nap with me,” and he’s not tired, but he lies down anyway, thumb brushing her shoulder as her breathing evens out. Harry stares at the ceiling and hopes he’s not making the same mistake he did before, getting in too deep with her. But then she lets out this little sound and moves closer to him, hand sliding up his chest, and like. He just doesn’t want to worry about it, okay? 

… … ...

At his mom’s party, he leans down to speak into her ear, and asks if there’s gonna be a repeat of Independence Day, when they blew off the entire thing and spent their time having sex in his room. And she coyly looks up at him and answers, “No,” and she can tell he wants to ask what’s changed, but she’s not going to get into it with him, okay? 

What’s changed is that, even though she knew damn well at the start of the summer that getting involved with Harry again would feel big and significant and in no way casual, it feels different now. It feels like, important that she show up for his mom like this. God, Allie’d helped make the truffles Karen had special ordered from the shop, piped the cursive B on top of each one because that’s still her last initial even though she remarried. Which Harry has mixed feelings about. But anyway, she sort of helped plan some of this, and she’s closer now with his family than she ever was before, and she thinks it’s important that they know she’s here. For them. Not just for him. Even if he looks ridiculously good in these dark denim jeans and white button down shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his collar just disheveled enough for her to know he did it on purpose. And this time, she didn’t show up to the house dressed for the party; she stayed over last night and showered, got ready and did her makeup with his sister as they drank mojitos Katie snuck them. Allie shouldn’t have let Katie drink one, but it also felt pretty harmless.

This party is like, beach casual. Allie’s wearing jeans, too, and these strappy wedge sandals she borrowed from Janine because they’re the same size, and a pale pink silk top she bought at a boutique in town. She likes the way it’s soft against her skin. She likes the way she can feel Harry’s hand against her as if there’s no fabric separating them. 

He steps behind the bar at one point to make her a drink, which she’s pretty sure is against the rules, or something, but she just leans her elbows on the bar and watches him pour things into a shaker and then the way his fingers hold the orange as he slices off a bit of the rind carefully with a paring knife. She, distractedly, thinks about how good he is with his hands. How _nice_ they are. How much time she’s spent this summer and that other one looking at them. 

“What?” he asks, grinning like he somehow already knows the answer. Allie shakes her head. He sets the glass on the bartop and says, “Tip?”

Allie leans forward, crooks her finger so he’ll come closer, and kisses him. The actual bartender laughs and says something about how that shit never happens to him. 

Harry takes Allie’s hand and leads her over to a group of people, telling her, his head tilted towards her a bit, that one of them is the chair of the board of an advocacy group in DC that she might find interesting. 

She wonders if it’s just always going to feel like this with him. 

At the end of the night, when all the guests are gone and the caterers are cleaning up, Geoff lights a fire in the fire pit out back, and Harry comes out of the house with a bottle of bourbon, a pitcher of lemonade, and a blanket tossed over his shoulder. He sets down the drinks, says Katie’s bringing glasses and ice, and then covers Allie over with the blanket and puts his arm around her. It’s absolutely crazy of her to think that is so goddamn endearing, but she realizes, also, that she’s a person who spends a lot of time caring for a lot of people. And now there’s Harry, who spends a lot of time caring for her. 

She’s glancing up at him as his mother talks about the party, clearly pleased with how it went. 

“What?” Harry asks quietly, smiling down at her. 

Allie doesn’t know what to say, just leans up and kisses him sweetly, and then laughs when Katie joins them and asks if she can mix drinks and Harry and Geoff both respond with, “No!” 

… … ...

Allie pins him to his bed one night when they’d been watching a movie and it got late and she decided to stay. He’s not even going to pretend he didn’t think this is exactly what would happen. Well, the it getting late and the her staying. The her on top of him, pressing his wrists above his head and leaning over him is a very, very pleasant surprise.

“What do you want, Harry?” she asks, and see, this is a trap, because the words themselves are hot, right, and the position they’re in is adding to that. But the way she’s asking is softer. Gentle. Almost uncertain. So he hesitates because he knows she knows what he wants right now. So she can’t be talking about that. 

And he remembers that night in the park, asking her the same question. He isn’t sure if she’s drawing this parallel on purpose, but he thinks it’s meaningful either way.

“You,” seems like an appropriate answer no matter what, so he goes with that. 

“After summer?” she asks, and then her fingertips slide up his forearms and she shifts above him, which feels exactly as good as you’d think. He goes to move his arms so he can touch her, but she stops him, her hands holding him down again. 

Yeah. Okay. 

“Still you,” he replies honestly. He wants to kiss her. It’s hot to be held down like this, but like…

“Is it different now than it was then?” It tickles a little when she runs her fingers over his biceps. He doesn’t try to move again, not even when her hands are resting against his bare chest and she’s sitting upright, looking down at him. Like, is she seriously this fucking hot? How did he get here with her again? (He knows the answers to both these questions. He’s too distracted to think of them.)

“Yes and no.” Her brow goes up. Harry gives her a dark look and watches the look on her face. She’s confused. Like she wasn’t expecting that. He likes to keep her on her toes. He moves them quickly so she’s on her back, his arm around her waist and her hair all wild. She looks irritated that he’s done it. Ah well. “Still crazy about you. But not as much of an idiot.”

Allie pushes his hair off his face, blinks up at him. She sounds soft and a little scared when she says, “We were in love before.” 

Harry nods. She’s right. They were. And it felt good. Almost as good as this. He’s trying not to think about how fast and hard he falls for her. It feels fucked up in some way. 

“Yeah,” he says, and then looks down at her as he says, “before.” Allie smiles slowly, like she’s known for a while that he feels this way now, too. So he has to ask, “How long have you known?”

Like, has he just been going along this summer thinking he was slick and she wouldn’t notice how he felt? And also, why the fuck would he think he could keep it from her? He immediately feels stupid for trying. And he also thinks of his sister’s meddling, and he probably should’ve asked for a fucking transcript of the conversation.

“Harry,” she laughs gently, then tugs him closer and he moves between her legs without needing much prompting. Her thighs feel so fucking good against his hips when she moves them to hold him there. “You were supposed to be here two weeks.”

Okay, so that’s true. It’s August. It’s been...a little longer than two weeks. 

“Oh, and you think that’s about you?” She pauses, then just nods under him, and like. Fuck. How’s he supposed to keep this going now? 

“Harry,” she breathes out, and he knows that voice, and he wants her, too, but he still feels like they’re having a heavy conversation and doesn’t want to just forget it. “Maybe it’s stupid, but I want to try again.”

He’s so fucking relieved and he knows he shows it in the way he lets out his breath and then leans his forehead against hers, the way he kisses her cheek, then her jaw, then her neck. 

“But better,” he adds, because that feels important, you know? 

“Yeah.” She’s laughing softly and her hand is in his hair at the back of his head. “We’re not dumb kids.” He chuckles, rocks against her just gently, because like, now can they be done talking? But then she’s pouting and he feels like a bit of a jerk about it until she says, “I wanted you under me.”

Harry inhales sharply, eyes slipping closed when she tugs gently at his hair. 

He gives her what she wants. Or she takes it. It doesn’t matter.


End file.
